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Bay Area Residents Head To D.C. For Inauguration

News Channel 8 photo by RUGENE MOORE

Olympia Malone and her daughter, Vanessa Escobar, prepare to begin their trip by chartered bus to Richmond, Virginia and then on to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of President-elect Obama.

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By CHIP OSOWSKI | News Channel 8

Published: January 19, 2009

Two buses filled with more than 100 people from the Bay area are on their way to Washington, D.C., this morning to be part of history: Tuesday's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

The group boarded the charter buses in the parking lot of Young Middle School in East Tampa about 1:15 a.m. to begin their trip.

Bennie Small organized the trip. He put an ad in the Florida Sentinel before Obama won the Nov. 4 election asking anyone interested in making the trip to give him a call.

"Once he won the election, I started getting calls from various people who wanted to go," Small said. "So from that point on, I've just flourished. People are wanting to go; people are wanting to get involved."

"It's very exciting and it's a blessing to be able to make the trip because it's affordable," Olympia Malone said. She boarded a bus this morning with her daughter, Vanessa Escobar. "And it's a historic event in that we're now witnessing an African American becoming the 44th president of the United States."

Organizers say they should arrive in Richmond, Va., between 6 and 6:30 p.m. They plan to spend the night there and get up early Tuesday morning to head to D.C.

News Channel 8 reporter Chip Osowski can be reached at (813) 221-5784.

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